an opinionated sports blog

June 14, 2017

A lot was made on Monday night after Pittsburgh defeated Nashville to win the Stanley Cup about how it was the hardest trophy in sports to win.

While many get wrapped up in the romanticism of the Cup and its history, it’s no harder to win than other major league sports.

Now, first off, I’ll state that while the Stanley Cup isn’t the hardest trophy to win, it’s also not the easiest. That in itself is part of my argument.

The first thing that many ice hockey fans point to is that many NHL players compete while injured. I’ve got some not-exactly breaking news for you: Players in every sport compete while hurt. It’s a fact of life in sports. If you think that this is exclusive to ice hockey, you’re dead wrong.

Football players are very rarely at 100%, basketball players play through their fair share of pain and as for baseball, does nobody remember Curt Schilling’s bloody sock game?

As for the sports themselves and the toll it takes on the competitors, you’re crazy to think that ice hockey is any tougher than a sport like football. Sure, the NHL season is much longer than the NFL’s , but it would be unrealistic and borderline inhumane to ask football players to compete any more than once per week – and we’ve seen how quality of play drops when teams play on just three days’ rest.

When looking at the physicality of each sport, many will argue that the grind of a NHL is the hardest – another point that just isn’t so. Even if you figure that NFL teams play far less games than NHLers, the amount of hits in an NFL season are still greater.

Look at, for example, Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final. There were 47 hits, total. When you consider that there were 136 tackles made during the Super Bowl – a number that doesn’t include the contact accumulated from blocks and hits away from the play, each NFL game has the same amount of physicality as an entire NHL playoff SERIES.

Then, there’s the numbers, which simply don’t add up for the NHL. Statistically, a team has the same odds to the Stanley Cup as the NBA championship or World Series. Each of the 30 teams starts the season with same odds as any other, while in the NFL, where there are 32 teams, it’s a bit trickier.

But when you consider that only 10 of 30 MLB teams reach the post-season while more than half of the 30 NHL and NBA teams make it, it’s actually harder to win in baseball. The NFL, which sees 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs, is harder as well.

An argument that I’ve heard is that the NHL is more competitive than other sports because any team that reaches the post-season has a realistic chance, unlike the NBA, where a superteam like the Warriors or Cavs were the only two squads with realistic shots. But this argument is a double-edged sword.

While the “anyone can win” mentality could be construed as making it harder for all, on the other side, is it not harder for a lower-ranked team like the Portland Trail Blazers or Indiana Pacers to win it all than, say, the Nashville Predators? Seeing the Preds make it to the Cup final shows it might actually be easier to win the Cup than the NBA title as an underdog.

So what is the hardest trophy to win in sports? That’s a discussion for another day, but let’s please stop saying that the Stanley Cup is the toughest to win – it’s merely just the best-looking of the five major North American sports.